Subway death photos -- what do they say about us?

Dec. 6, 2012
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New York Post front page from Dec. 4. / New York Post

by Laura Petrecca, USA TODAY

by Laura Petrecca, USA TODAY

A New York photographer who snapped images of a man about to be killed by a subway train was far from the only person who filmed the startling events at that scene.

A subway rider recorded a heated altercation between victim Ki-Suck Han and Naeem Davis, the man accused of pushing him onto the subway tracks.

As Han's body was pulled to the platform and a doctor tried unsuccessfully to revive him, people crowded in to take pictures and videos, said New York Post freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi, whose photo of Han seconds before he was hit ran on the newspaper's cover.

"A crowd came over with camera phones and they were pushing and shoving, trying to look at the man and taking videos," Abbasi wrote in the Post.

As more people pull out their smartphones and other devices to record violent, vulgar or otherwise traumatic events, it invites a question: Is it citizen journalism or simply incivility?

Such photos have exposed the wrongs of those in power and documented tragic yet newsworthy events. In 2005, London transit riders used their cellphone cameras to document the horrors of mass bus and subway bombings. Earlier this year, New York and New Jersey residents used their phones to chronicle the destruction that came with Superstorm Sandy.

Media outlets, USA TODAY included, use images taken by regular folks. CNN's iReport is fed by public contributions. The website of celebrity-focused TMZ encourages people to submit photos or video of "a breaking story."

While amateur photographers capture events they see as informative or entertaining, their actions can also be seen as insensitive or worse.

In the case of subway victim Han, many people would be "morally offended" to learn that others on the platform snapped pictures just after his death, says Daniel McFee, co-director of the Evelyn Lincoln Institute for Ethics and Society at Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pa.

"We think, 'What if that were someone in my family?'" he says.

People are inclined to gawk at those involved in an accident or other surprising event, but that is much different from taking out a smartphone and snapping a picture, McFee says.

"There's a natural impulse for us to want to survey our landscape and see what is going on," he says, but there's usually a moment of deliberation before someone takes a picture.

"There's an intention there that you are trying to capture something for yourself or social media," he says. "There is a moral difference there."

Melanie Wells, managing director at New York City public relations firm DiGennaro Communications, was shocked recently by what she saw after a bike messenger tumbled to the street: An onlooker in a cab at a red light didn't offer to help but leaned out to snap a photo.

Wells wonders if the camera lens makes people increasingly indifferent to a person's situation.

"With smartphones, we're all witnesses, but does being behind the camera make us more removed?" she asks.

She has a theory about why people snap and post unexpected photos: "The need to feed the social media beast," she says.

Users try "to fill our Facebook pages and other outlets with material that shows we're interesting, out and about and on the scene," she says.

McFee and Joseph Churman, a leader at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, agree that social media come into play.

Such sites have "encouraged a type of narcissism in American lives, as well as globally, where everyone has to parade their own dubious accomplishments in front of the world," Churman says.

He says many photo-takers have been "desensitized" by watching the traditional media do "unseemly" things, such as stick a microphone into the face of a distraught person to probe their feelings.

TV and Web news viewers regularly see content that is "invasive and intrusive," and then they try to mimic it, he says.

There are also many examples of potentially offensive videos on non-news sites. For example, a search on YouTube for "car crashes caught on camera" comes up with 8,400 videos.

Anne Klaeysen, also a leader at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, suggests that someone who sees a shocking or tragic event should take a deep breath before pulling out a smartphone.

"Sometimes our behavior gets ahead of our ethics," she says.

She says taking a moment means, whatever the observer ends up doing, "at least it would come out of self-awareness."